Session 10
Player Changes:
Luke is back and playing the Ottomans. Lutai (Hansa) is gone permanently, although he’s been dead for ages. Netherlands is gone.
London Falls Again
By the end of the last session, the British made a huge blunder and lost most of their fleet, and with it their naval supremacy. With the war still ongoing, Italy rushed into Great Britain and seized about a third of the mainland, ending the war and once again ending British control of the seas. With Britain’s fall and piloted by a less experienced player, the Ottomans’ war also ended in defeat soon after, forcing them to cede most of their remaining European provinces to Austria and Italy.
The state of Great Britain after the Italian invasion.
Another Italian invasion of Great Britain threatened to cripple him permanently if he didn’t accept a permanent NAP with Italy and Austria, so Great Britain chose to accept the NAP, but by this point his role in the campaign seems largely over.
Italy contacted me about renewing the NAP between myself, him, and Austria (and giving me some land in exchange for doing so), but after confirming with Prussia that he would still be interested in a deal we negotiated around a month ago involving him switching sides after our last war and working with me, I chose to turn it down. In response, Italy accepted vassalization from Austria, boosting Austria’s force limit and providing a solution to the threat of Italy being quickly occupied and stability hit out of a large war. Just before the war, I reached Land 30 and Government 30, acquiring Regimental System; one of the most powerful National Ideas in the game. Unfortunately, I couldn’t reach Production 31 in time for the war.
The Great War of 1635
The moment the NAP ended, everyone was prepared for war, and they were not disappointed. Prussia declared war, called me in, and together we pushed quickly into Italy and Austria with a large advantage in men, manpower, and troop quality. While Austria’s generals were mostly better due to his previous war with the Ottomans, I managed to recruit a 6 shock 6 fire general who could fight in the most important battles and make up for my slightly worse ones (such as 3 fire 5 shock) elsewhere. While ideally we would’ve waited for my regency to end and thus for me to have a better military ruler and a good CB, Italy was lagging behind at Land 27 and there was no sense giving him time to catch up.
Italy and Austria realized the situation they were in, with Italy falling back and scorching in Spain while both nations tried to hold their mountainous heartland. I realized that since Italy was a vassal and was putting so much effort into scorching Spain there was little use invading there, and after losing a stack or two chose to retreat back to the Pyrenees and focus my invasion efforts eastward. A quick push into Italy and southern Austria left the majority of the Italian army in a dangerous predicament, losing to a large amount of Frenchmen with no viable retreat path, and with Austria too far away and too preoccupied to provide support, the situation looked grim for him indeed. Unfortunately, fate decided to intervene that day, and my screen capture software crashed my computer (it had been lagging badly all war, but I decided to try to get a recording anyways), allowing Italy to escape before the game registered that I dropped and thus before anyone noticed that I had.
While the Miracle of Mantua was a fortuitous event for the Italians, their alliance was far too disadvantaged at that point to stand a serious chance of recovery. The Ottomans, who had been bugging me constantly to get me to let them join and support their claims, joined around the same time that Austria paid Russia for aid, and several new fronts erupted into action.
War rages across Europe
With the Russians drawing the Prussians to a new front and the new Ottoman invasion forcing Austria to relocate troops, the war changed slightly but Russia did not seem able to manage enough progress to turn around the war. Finally, the Italians tried one desperate counteroffensive, but their low-quality troops and generals meant there was no real hope of victory for them, and with another loss of the Italian army looking inevitable and Austria largely in French, Prussian, and Ottoman hands, Austria and Italy surrendered unconditionally. In the end, Prussia requested two cores from Austria, I requested one province from Austria and three from Italy, and Ottomans requested four from Austria and two from Italy. In addition, we asked for 15,000 gold (the same amount that had been taken by Austria and Italy from the Ottomans a few years prior) divided equally between the members of our alliance. Since Russia was still fine and killing him would not have been easy, both sides were happy to white peace on that front.
Aftermath and Buildup
With Production 31 (for a Grain Depot) and max slider positions being acquired shortly after the war, the game is moving inevitably towards the least fun phase, where overpowered high level DW buildings leads to semi-infinitely sized armies. With nearly one and a half million men and having bested all of its neighbours time after time, France has achieved its goals and established itself as the far-and-away dominant power in Europe once again. Due to my lack of a particular need to expand further or weaken Austria and Italy, I decided to give Prussia the initiative in starting future wars with them (if at all) and if he wanted me to participate in those wars, and so far he hasn’t expressed interest. With Government 33 approaching for Scientific Revolution, the rush to absurdly high Land tech levels awaits, but with the current political alignments being as lopsided as they are the game doesn’t seem likely to last much longer.
Infantry cost drops to almost meaningless levels late game, and combined with giant forcelimit boosts from Conscription Centres maintaining absurdly large armies is quite easy.
Stats and map
http://www.europa3.ru/cgi-bin/mpsta...e=int&season=comp-2013&game=XVI&yearsave=1651
The world in 1651.
Comments
Unfortunately my screen recorder was horribly laggy and eventually took down my computer, so it looks like recording (or at least recording late-game) is a no-go after all. There’s also a distinct lack of screenshots from the war as a result, but it wasn’t hugely interesting; the massively lopsided army sizes basically just led to me brute-forcing my way through unfavourable terrain and large enemy armies.